Online poker legend Benjamin Rolle (“bencb789”) bagged the Day 1B chip lead in the WPT World Online Championships Main Event. That puts him second in chips heading into Tuesday’s Day 2 finale. Blaz Zerjav from Slovenia holds the overall chip lead after finishing Day 1A with an impressive 4.4 million chips.
Partypoker, a World Poker Tour partner, is hosting the WOC series. The series has become the WPT’s top focus as the global health pandemic forced the stoppage of its live Main Tour.
The World Poker Tour is also hosting an Online Borgata Series for players in New Jersey. American players, unless they leave the US to compete, aren’t eligible to play in the WOC as the series is only available on the global Partypoker platform.
The Online Borgata Series began Sunday with a $100,000 guaranteed Kickoff event. A player using the screen name “treetrap” shipped the 495-player tournament for $18,080.
Rolle on a Roll
Rolle has long been one of the top online poker players. He recently ran deep in the GGPoker WSOP Main Event, finishing in 11th place for $161,686. The German poker pro, affectionately known as “bencb789,” is back at it again, chasing glory in the WPT World Online Championships Main Event.
Rolle bagged 3,604,241 chips on Day 1B, the most of the session.
Registration in the $10,300 buy-in, $10 million guaranteed tournament closed on Monday with 1,011 entries. Partypoker barely hit its guarantee with $10,110,000 in the pot.
Only 156 players advanced to Day 2 — 75 of them coming from the Day 1A flight. The bubble will burst early on Tuesday — play begins at 11:30 am PT — once 19 players bust. Each of the 136 players who cash will receive at least $23,253, but all eyes will be on that first-place prize, a whopping $1,715,667. The runner-up will also become a millionaire, as the payout for second place is $1,231,600.
Rolle is far from the only big-name pro who advanced to Day 2. Shaun Deeb, the 2018 WSOP Player of the Year and a long-time online poker crusher, bagged the third-largest Day 1A stack at 2,700,000. Upeshka De Silva finished with the exact same chip stack in the same session.
Four previous World Poker Tour champions also bagged and tagged, including Dylan Linde (1.9 million), Ole Schemion (1.7 million), Juha Helppi (1.5 million), Alex Foxen (676,000). 2013 WSOP Main Event champ Ryan Riess (400,000) will also be in the field.
Other big-name pros moving on to Day 2 include Ali Imsirovic (2,984,524), Dan Smith (2,735,368), Kenny Hallaert (1.7 million), Steve O’Dwyer (1 million), Kahle Burns (900,000), and Chance Kornuth (622,000).
